isa-normaladvance-1915-00003
| Description: |
THE NORMAL ADVANCEwas no God. If it were not true, if he wereharassed by a vivid night mare, would he neverwake up?Then a message from Junes parents hadcalled him to their home. They had asked himif he knew of any cause for her act. He hadsadly replied that he did not. Then they hadsaid June had quarrelled with her mother oversome trivial matter. That had been their onlyexplanation.Then he had gone alone into the room whereJune lay dead, with the roses faded in hercheeks, the sunlight vanished from her eyes,and the bubbling music of her laughter stilledfor eternity. For the first time grief touchedhim. Before, he had been too stupified torealize that June was dead. It had seemed asif he were asleep and would wake up, or thathe were being made the victim of a ghastlypractical joke. He had wanted to tell them allthat the jest had gone far enough, but now itall seemed real, he was alone. What shouldhe live for? After sometime he had left andhad gone home again. Exhausted by the wildoutburst of emotion and the sustained mentalstrain, he had gone to bed.Now, in the bright light of day the dreamseemed infinitely less terrible than when he haddreamed it. George was unspeakably relievedto thing it was merely an empty phantom resulting from an over-tired mind and body. Hedecided he would tell June of it when he sawher the next evening, because this day was Saturday and he would be too busy to meet her.None of the household was up when Georgewent downstairs. He carried down the textbooks for his Saturday morning recitations. Heleft them on a table and stepped out on theporch to get the morning paper.As he leaned over to pick the paper up, thewords, Sunday Comic Supplement, met hishorrified eyes with all their hideous meaning.Temperance is a bridle of gold he whouses it rightly is more like a god than a man.—Burton. |
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| Source: |
http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/34809 |
| Collection: |
Indiana State University Archives |
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